Curtain Call
by azayana
Summary: The second hardest thing in life is to lose a loved one. The hardest is moving on after that loss. 'He takes her face and her memory and etches it into his mind because he will not forget: Toph deserves more and he will give it to her.'


_Some say beauty is more apparent in death. And Aang realises this all too well when the time comes. _

(Someone said you never know what love is until you lose it.)

_Her eyes aren't closed and he wants to scream at her, shake her until they do close. And he does. _

_It doesn't work. Her (too pale, too lifeless) eyes stare back out at him and it's unnatural and it breaks his heart and how is he going to go on?_

(Crushes are earthly attachments; they aren't real, not in that way. Love is not an earthly attachment; it simply is.)

_"Not funny, Toph." _

(Denial is so so real and Egypt or not, it exists.)

_"Toph, can you hear me? Not funny. Not." _

(Sometimes waking up is the hardest thing in life.)

_"Aang? I think - I think…" Katara's voice is choking and he doesn't know why and this is Toph's twisted idea of a joke, right? _

('I don't see anything.' Of course; no one ever loves age twelve, and sometimes there really is only that one right person.)

_"No. That's - no. She's twelve. Twelve. She's - she…"_

(Twelve is too young to die. Too young to _love_.)

_Katara wants Aang to stop right there or her heart will break into even more little pieces and even Sokka can feel the pain emanating off her. She can't tell him, she can't, but Toph never got the chance and… _

(Sometime later, they always say, only there is no sometime later.)

_Sokka and now Aang and Katara thinks Toph is the most unlucky person in the world and so is Aang and so is she and so is Sokka and so is Zuko and so is Iroh and everyone else involved in this power struggle and futile resistance attempt and it's not working and she wants to give up, she really does, but she promised. Promised a vertically challenged blind girl with messy black hair and an attitude large enough for all of the Earth Kingdom._

(People always fall in love with the wrong ones. It's a rule of life.)

_They will go on; they always do. They moved on after Jet, they moved on after Yue, they moved on after Jin, and they will move on after Toph. But the closest are always the hardest. _

(Letting go is painful. It is heart wrenching and horrible and excruciating and agonising and worst of all, it has to happen.)

_He takes her face and her memory and etches it into his mind because he will not forget; Toph deserves more and he will give it to her - he owes his teacher that. _

_Though really, she was more than his teacher. His friend. _

_And maybe she could have been more, if he'd given her the chance. _

_He never did._

(Sometimes the blindest of all are those who believe they are in love.)

_"I'll miss you." _

(And after grief one must move on, because life must go on and on and on and on. The world is just a show and everyone part of it and eventually, the curtains will close.)

_Until then, he will live on. _

_Until then, he will remember. _

(Memory plagues everyone but sometimes it is a blessing in disguise.)

_One day they will meet again; a different place, a different time, a different life. _

_He waits for that day with all his heart. _

(Never underestimate the power of love.)

_The next Avatar will be a Waterbender. A cheerful, bouncy Waterbender who to all appearances acts more like an Airbender._

_The next Avatar will fall in love with an Earthbender. An Earthbender sheltered and protected and sardonic and pretty and with a height complex. _

_The next Avatar will just be carrying on remnants of the past. _

(It takes eternity to forget someone.)

(You meet all those you lose again someday.)

* * *

A/N: I killed Toph! I can't believe that _I killed Toph_. And I drew… inspiration from a quote of Shakespeare's. If anyone can identify it… cookies? Unless you'd prefer a drabble. I like drabbles.  
Okay… I know! If anyone guesses right (as in _anyone_, not just the first), I owe them a drabble. Any pairing, FMA or Avatar, any genre and any length. But keep it less than 2000 words. That is, if anyone actually _wants_ a random drabble by me. I think I have self-delusion-problems.  
Enough about that. One question though; if Aang doesn't have kids/dies, what happens to the Avatar cycle when it rolls around to the Airbenders again? Doesn't that kind of destroy the dead!Aang theory? Just asking.


End file.
